Thanks for the enthusiastic reception! I have most of this written, so I should be updating pretty regularly. I hope you all continue to enjoy it!

When they arrived at Crabapple Farm, Trixie hopped out of the jeep immediately. Honey leaned across the seat. "Do you want me to come in with you, to see if Bobby's there?"

"No," Trixie called back. "I'll come up when I'm done talking to Moms and we'll take the horses out."

"Okay." With a squealing and snarling sound, Honey changed gears into reverse and backed carefully down the driveway, managing to avoid the mailbox at the end as she pulled out onto Glen Road and turned toward her own home.

Trixie ran into the house. "Moms!"

"Ssh!" her mother said, coming to the door of the kitchen with a dish towel in her hand. "I just got Bobby to go take a nap a few minutes ago."

"How many minutes? I mean, could he have snuck out?"

"Snuck out?" Her mother frowned at her. "He's been running a fever all morning. He was asleep before I left the room."

"Oh." Trixie frowned, thinking about what she had seen. She'd been so sure it was Bobby.

"Is something the matter, dear?"

"No, Moms. Apparently not." Except that Jim was gone, and even when he'd been here, he hadn't really been here. But she didn't know how to talk to her mother about that. She didn't know how to talk to anyone about it.

Several days passed in the regular routine—looking after Bobby, helping Moms with housework, tending the garden and the chickens, helping Honey exercise the stable-full of horses. About a week after Brian and Jim had left, as Trixie and Honey were riding Lady and Susie through the Wheelers' game preserve, they ran into Dan Mangan. Dan was Regan's nephew. He had gotten into trouble with a big-city gang and come to live with Mr. Maypenny, who looked after the game preserve, and had become the old man's right hand.

"Hi, Dan," Trixie said, swinging down from Susie's back.

Dan was crouched over some tracks on the ground. He stood up as Trixie approached. "Oh, hey, Trix. And Honey," he added, looking over Trixie's shoulder.

"What are you looking at?"

"Looks like Bobby was out here, although seems like a long way from your house."

"Bobby wouldn't come this far, not without one of us with him," Trixie agreed. "You know, I thought I saw Bobby out this way when we were coming home from dropping Jim and Brian off last week."

Dan's eyes narrowed. "Sure is quiet around here with half the Bob-Whites away."

"It is," Honey said. She sighed.

Dan smiled at her. "Brian'll be back in no time." He glanced quickly at Trixie, then away. "Jim, too."

"Yeah." Try as she might, Trixie couldn't force enthusiasm into her voice. Honey, occupied tying Lady's reins to a nearby tree branch, didn't seem to notice, but Dan did, his eyes fastening on Trixie's face.

"Something wrong, Trix?"

She shook her head, embarrassed to find tears threatening to fill her eyes. "No, everything's fine."

"If you want someone to talk to …"

Honey came over to look at the tracks, breaking the mood. "Are these really Bobby's tracks?"

"I'm not sure," Dan said. He squeezed Trixie's arm reassuringly as he turned away, looking down at the tracks.

"I think they're a little smaller than Bobby's," Trixie said.

Dan tried to span the footprint with one of his hands. "They look about right to me."

Trixie shook her head. "Bobby's been going through a growth spurt; Moms keeps complaining that she can't buy shoes fast enough. These are about the size of Bobby's foot last fall, but he's bigger than this now."

The three of them searched the nearby trails for any further traces of a little boy about Bobby's age, but couldn't find anything.

At last, Dan looked up at the sky. "I'm going to have to hurry home if I'm going to get any studying in. I'm taking a correspondence course in criminal justice," he said when the girls looked at him in confusion. "Hoping to get ahead for next semester."

Dan was studying to be a policeman. He wanted to be on the streets, able to help boys who were troubled the way he had been and keep them from falling in with the wrong crowd.

He cleared his throat, glancing almost shyly at Trixie. "Do you want to come over and look at my study materials sometime? Some of the descriptions of investigative techniques are pretty interesting. I'm sure Mr. Maypenny wouldn't mind."

"That would be great, Dan!" Trixie said enthusiastically. She and Honey planned to run the Belden-Wheeler Detective Agency when they got older, although Trixie was the one who did most of the detecting. In the last few months, Honey had been talking less and less about their agency, and more and more about what it would be like to get married and have a family. Trixie had to admit, her friend had never been the enthusiastic detective she was. "I'll check with Moms and come by after dinner tomorrow night, okay?"

"Great." Dan flashed her a rare, genuine smile and Trixie returned it, glad for another Bob-White who understood the importance of being a detective.